“Your bet, Dubya,” Bill reminded Dubya to keep the game moving along. Annoyed, Dubya pulled a folded sheet of legal sized paper from his overall pocket and studied it. He did that about twice a night. Nobody except Dubya and Ham knew what was on the sheet, though there were plenty of guesses. The most common conjecture was that Dubya kept a list of which hands beat which in seven card stud. He continued to study the sheet, holding it so no one could see.
“C’mon and play, Dubya,” Carl said, who was also getting anxious, especially since he was holding a full house. What Dubya was looking at was a list of the regular poker players with their tendencies. In a small, neat handwriting, Dubya had written:
YMCA Poker Players
1. Thom Jeff (known to play for locks; will fold early in the hand if he did not get at least a pair in the first three cards of seven card stud. The drunker he gets, the more conservative his card playing.)
2. Carl Robinette (an eternal optimist. rather go for the inside straight or some other poor percentage hand. Wins more times than he should and pisses off other players, especially Thom Jeff playing locks. The drunker Carl gets, the more reckless his card playing.)
3. Brother Bob (learned in college; plays by the book.)
4. Kenneth “Bill” Fagg Andrews (unpredictable poker player, and therefore dangerous. If it looks like he has a full house, he might have nothing; or, if his face cards show nothing he could be sitting on a full house. Talks all the time, tells bad jokes. Is distracting—maybe on purpose?)
5. Mack Smith (sawyer at mill. best player, next to me [Dubya wrote]. Plays percentages. wins more often than he lost.)
6. Harold—unknown tendencies. After he died in 1972, Harold’s name was scratched off, and Ham was added. Beside Ham’s name, Dubya wrote simply, “Promising.”
Once Dubya confided to Ham that he sometimes had to look at the sheet to remember the names of the players around the table. Getting old is a bitch, Ham thought.
“Make up your mind, Dubya,” Bill said, “You been studyin’ that card the way ole’ Crum does down at UNC when he’s tryin’ to decide what to call on a third down with twenty yards to go. Never works out for him.”
Dubya looked up and said, “I fold.” Bill and Carl let out a sigh of exasperation.
Feeling stiffness in his buttocks despite the pillow, Ham stood and went over to the snack table and grabbed a moon pie and a Cheerwine from the fridge (he had heard “Yankees” would drive all night from the Northeast buy cases of Cheerwine and then drive all the way back home—stupid Yankees!). Then Ham walked over to the Wurlitzer jukebox. Dubya kept the jukebox full of Country and Western records, mostly Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves, his favorite artists. Each player had his favorite tune. Brother Bob loved Patsy Cline’s “She’s Got You.” Mack chose the only R & B song in the Wurlitzer, “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay,” by Otis Redding. Dubya loved “Danny Boy,” by Jim Reeves. Carl’s favorite was “Crazy” by Patsy Cline. Cornelia and Ham liked anything by Jim Reeves—she because she loved “Gentleman Jim’s” rich baritone voice and thought he was handsome, he because Reeves had been a professional baseball player before pursuing his musical career fulltime. Patsy and Gentleman Jim had died in airplane crashes within a year of each other.
Ham pressed K-9, the last slot in the Wurlitzer. The list said it contained “La Bamba” by Ritchie Valens (another victim of a plane crash in 1959 that also claimed the life of Buddy Holly), but nobody ever played the song. Several weeks ago, he had secretly replaced “La Bamba” with another forty-five rpm single. It began to blare over the jukebox:
Young man, there’s no need to feel down.
I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground.
I said, young man, ‘cause you’re in a new town
There’s no need to be unhappy.
“What in tarnation is that, Ham?” Dubya asked.
“Listen, Grandpa.” Ham pleaded. About that time, the Village People belted out:
It’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A
It’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A.
“See they’re singin’ about the YMCA. I thought it could kinda be our theme song. Maybe play it at the beginnin’ and end of each Sunday night.”
“I’ve heard this song,” Brother Bob said. “It’s new, right?”
“Yep,” Ham said. “Just released a couple of months ago.”
Bob continued, “I read an article about it in the New York Times recently. Seems a couple members of the Village People are gay, and the gay community is adopting the song as their anthem.”
“Gay whats?” Dubya said.
“That’s what homosexuals call themselves now, Dubya,” Carl offered.
“Well, Ham, we can’t have no homosexual anthem as our theme song! Take that record out of the Wurlitzer right now!” Dubya commanded, as if somehow the record was defiling the very essence of the jukebox.
“I’m sorry, Grandpa. I had no idea. I just like the song and all.” Ham stammered and removed the record from the jukebox.
Brother Bob intervened. “Look, I wasn’t making a judgment. Who cares what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms?”
“It’s against the Bible.” Thom Jeff spoke for the first time since telling the Coach Groves story.
“What do you care about what’s in the Bible, Thom Jeff? You don’t go to church!” Carl challenged.
“The Bible supports slavery, but Christians nowadays don’t support that, certainly not at the church your family attends, Thom Jeff,” Brother Bob said quietly. Mack nodded in agreement. “And we have women deacons at Second Little Rock Baptist Church, and the Bible seems to be against that too. The Bible requires interpretation. One day, gays will have the same rights as everybody else, maybe not in our lifetimes, but it will happen. One day they will even be allowed to marry legally.”
“Well, I just don’t think it’s right. And you don’t need no inTERpretation to see the Bible is agin’ it!” Thom Jeff said.
“I’ll have to agree with you on this one, Thom Jeff,” Dubya pronounced, looking over at Brother Bob. “Let’s talk about somethin’ else.” Brother Bob shrugged his shoulders and waved his hands.
“Wait, wait,” Bill said. “This reminds me of a story I heard over at Big Mama’s house.”
Big Mama was a woman in Ashe County that Bill had been having an affair with for years. Nobody knew why. Bill’s wife, Jeannette, was pretty and sweet, and Big Mama, at least according to Bill, was, well, big and not very pretty. But she was a willing partner, which was what mattered most to Bill. Bill was on thin ice; he knew Dubya didn’t approve of him speaking of Big Mama in the poker room (and he wouldn’t have done so if Cornelia had been present). But Bill plowed ahead:
“See, there was this woman named Mary Margaret who lived in South Georgia. She was rich and lived on a plantation. Her and
